


limbo

by refuted



Category: The Boys (TV 2019)
Genre: F/F, jealous!maeve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:33:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26998978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/refuted/pseuds/refuted
Summary: Maggie Shaw does jealous.It's not a good look on her, but she's only human.Queen Maeve doesn't. Isn't, and anyway, Elena isn't hers to feel jealous over.
Relationships: Elena/Queen Maeve (The Boys)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 99





	limbo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RenLuthor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenLuthor/gifts).



Maeve visits often. 

They're not together, but they're not _not_ together, and it's a tricky dance that she and Elena are still learning the steps to. She suspects something will have to give, eventually, but for now Maeve visits often.

"Tell me about the view."

"It's shit."

Elena pushes her knee into Maeve's waist, disturbing the nice thing they've got going on the couch. "It's a multi-billion dollar top-floor vista." She straightens her legs again, letting them rest over Maeve's lap as Elena adjusts her spot, back against the sofa arm. 

Still nice, then.

Maeve drops her palm back onto Elena's knee, squeezing when she exaggerates her frown. "If you won't take me, at least tell me about it."

She nearly says, _You know why that's not possible_ , but Elena's already looking away, like she does know and is too tired to tiptoe around it anymore. She rests her cheek on an open palm, perched at the elbow against a throw pillow. 

With the not-breakup comes a strange tension to things. Unpredictable but expected, sparking at the tinder of any and all hints of Vought, at most mentions of the word _can't_ , at hesitations that Maeve would call careful and Elena would call reluctant.

Maeve sighs, playing with the unlit Marlboro between her thumb and index finder. "It gives me vertigo. When I look too long."

"You're not afraid of heights," Elena says. 

Maeve hums. "No." 

"And when you don't look too long?"

Maeve licks her lips. She reaches over to grab the Zippo on the coffee table next to them and lights the cigarette with one, two swipes of her thumb. Elena takes it before she offers. 

"It's nothing special," Maeve says, oddly focused on Elena's mouth as she inhales. If she weren't so comfortable in their current position (if she weren't so anxious about the limbo of it), she'd lean up to kiss her. She flicks her gaze back up. Maybe later.

"The view is fine. Ask me something else. Something funner."

Elena mulls it over, exhaling deeply. After a moment, she reaches over to pull at the fabric of her knit sweater and smiles. "Ever thought about visiting me in costume?"

This is her life now:

Cheap leather, bare skin, a tiara. Homelander's clammy palm pressed low against her back when he ingratiates himself in front of her press cameras. Audience surveys and test panels and anonymous polls that tell her which crimes to prevent and which to save for the big boys in spandex.

It's not what she wanted.

"Is this what you signed up for," she asks to no one in particular. To Noir, digging into the 99th floor fridge as VNN hums in the background. She's perched on the kitchen island marble, bored out of her fucking mind and the question just comes out of her mouth. Idly, she wonders if she'll get in trouble for asking. 

He pokes his head out of the fridge. Acknowledges the question with a blank (masked, always masked) stare but ultimately doesn't respond. Unhelpful. 

Noir reaches back into the fridge, tosses her a chilled bottle of Marathon Macchiato on his way out, and she's left with her own thoughts for all of five minutes, until she gets a text about armed robbery thirty blocks away. 

They always shoot. 

(She prefers it when they shoot.)

With a dozen bullet casings on the floor and not a single civilian death, the fine folks of the NYPD are much more likely to turn a blind eye when the convicts at the bottom of their most wanted list await them in a slumped pile with a concussion each and a broken rib or two. 

Maeve suspects they'd turn a blind eye regardless of the body count, but what would that make her. 

(She saves that question for a better day.)

She looks up at the surveillance camera just outside the cafe door, willing some sort of challenge to come her way, and just as suddenly hears a voice she recognizes. Low, steady. Too-sticky in her mind, pulling her thoughts back to Elena, Elena, Elena.

"We didn't notice them come in. Didn't even realize anything was happening until the yelling started." 

Elena doesn't live around here.

Across the street, she's sat on a gurney with blood on her shirt and a fresh bandage wrapped around her bicep, giving her statement to a cop who couldn't possibly look less interested. 

(She didn't see her when the bullets started to fly. 

The whole thing would have ended in a second if she'd known.)

Beside her, another woman stands with her arms crossed, brow furrowed. "Who the hell robs a coffee shop?"

She looks at Elena, too tender, asks her quietly, "Are you alright?"

Elena nods, leaning into the touch when the woman reaches over and squeezes her shoulder. Suddenly, strangely, Maeve feels like she's intruding. (Stranger still, she can't get herself to move.)

"Did you get a good look at what had happened?"

"No." Elena looks at the cop again. "It was over so quickly."

"Seems like we could have avoided the shooting all together if the supe had just taken them out faster."

Elena frowns at her, just as she realizes Maeve watching the exchange. 

Maggie Shaw does jealous.

It's not a good look on her, but she's only human.

Queen Maeve doesn't. Isn't, and anyway, Elena isn't hers to feel jealous over.

(She tells herself this, again and again, but the feeling keeps burrowing into her chest, finding a home in the perpetual crease around her mouth.)

"Do you ever think about dating?"

This, she says directly to Noir. She thinks they might be friends. Friendly.

He's sat a few chairs away from her, carefully scooping out spoonfuls of matcha into two bowls while she rolls her third joint of the day. Maeve pushes back in her chair, reclining as she kicks her feet onto the conference table. They've fallen into a habit of avoiding Vought press briefings together, and if Maeve weren't so uncertain of him, she'd almost consider it nice.

Noir turns to look at her, shaking his head once like he's waiting for her to explain the question. 

"As a hero. You've been part of the Seven for a while. Stillwell's never tried to set you up with one of the minor league supes?" He turns back to his matcha. 

"I get why you're single," she tells the empty space in the far corner of the room. There, done. She lights the thing and inhales, finally reaching a bit of the emptiness that the first two couldn't get her. "Even a pretty boy like you can't hide being a fucking creep long enough to make it to a second date."

Noir huffs silently, shoulders bouncing. 

She inhales again, closing her eyes; pictures Elena, looking fondly at a woman with straight blonde hair and wandering hands and a soft mouth painted red.

Maeve hears the chair beside her roll back. "Why don't I ever get invited to the tea parties?"

(She wonders if Elena's kissed that mouth.)

Maeve opens her eyes, blinks the thought away. Noir slides a cup of matcha for her, lifting his mask over his mouth as she hands the joint over.

"Go away," she says, suddenly parched. "And stay invisible."

Noir reaches toward Maeve, pulling back just as she feels a whiff of air between them. Maeve kicks at the seat of the chair, relishing in the sound of the _thud_ just before Translucent's yelp. The chair continues to roll toward the door.

"Low blow, Maeve."

She takes another puff and exhales in his direction, waving him away. "Fuck off."

"Are you okay?"

The bandage is gone. Maeve nearly reaches to see just where she'd been hit; thinks of someone else beating her to it. She keeps her hands at her side.

Elena lets her in, stepping away and then leaning back against the door after she's closed it. She catches Maeve staring and lifts her t-shirt sleeve over her shoulder. A graze. 

"Fine. A little shaken at first, but I knew a supe would come save the day." Maeve frowns and Elena smiles. "A member of the Seven no less."

"Elena…" 

"My very own hero," she says, pleased with how uncomfortable the word makes Maeve when it comes from her mouth, honeyed and flippant. "I'm a little surprised it took her so long to visit though."

Maeve steps into her space then, hovering her hand over Elena's bicep like an apology. (Briefly, she wonders if she'd have killed the man who hurt her, had she seen it happen.)

"See?" Elena murmurs. "Good as new." 

She tilts her head toward Maeve, watching her expectantly. "It's been a while," she says, breath fluttering at her cheek. 

Maeve licks her lips. "That woman," she starts again eventually, quietly, unsure how she wants to word this. She looks at Elena when she says this. Her brow twitches up and the smile fades but doesn't quite disappear. She remains silent for a beat, considering.

Then,

"She's a friend from work."

"Just a friend?"

"Just a friend."

Maeve steps back, fidgeting with her wrist brace. She wishes she had something to light.

(She pictures a woman sitting across from Elena at a coffee shop, reaching across the table to hold her hand.)

"Seemed like you were more than that," Maeve says, though it comes out like a question. 

"What, from the thirty seconds you stuck around to spy for?" Elena rests her head back against the door, eyes flicking up to the ceiling. "She's interested. In me."

Ah. There it is. 

"And you?"

"Kind of involved with someone else." 

Elena tilts her chin, eyes sweeping back down to catch Maeve's gaze. Maeve nods, swallows. Huh. She think she might be a little speechless. Supposes that she might have been expecting a breakup until just now.

"Why," Elena says, pushing off the door. She takes three steps to close the distance, hand coming up to pick at her shoulder guard. "Were you jealous?"

Maeve licks her lips. Considers kissing her as her response.

(Elena always preferred show over tell.)

"C'mon babe." (Honeyed and flippant, but there's a bit of affection there too.) Maeve slips her fingers under Elena's shirt, skimming around her waist, smiling when she shivers at the touch. "Tell me."

Maeve leans forward and catches Elena's mouth in her own, kisses her like an answer and a follow-up and a conclusion. Elena smiles against her like she knows and isn't going to let her off so easily.

She pulls back, lips just barely grazing Maeve's. "Fine, don't. You can tell me later."

Elena brings her hands down the length of Maeve's back, playing with the leather pleats of her skirt. "I see you came in costume."

**Author's Note:**

> look I know he's probably gonna try and kill her next season but the only headcanon i will accept about maeve knowing noir's allergy is that they were FRIENDS. many thanks to RennyWilson for the fun lil prompt :)


End file.
